What's New

Of course in the flood
business, a lot has happened in 2018. But a decade or two down the road, I
wonder if looking back at 2018 we would conclude that this year we turned the
page and made hazard mitigation a priority at least at the federal level. Let’s
look back on a few of the bigger events:

In February we had the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, which
included a Federal Cost Share Reform Incentive that encourages states to adopt
the latest building codes and incentivizes states to invest in community
resiliency. FEMA has one year to provide guidance to states. Basically this is
a variation of a concept long championed by ASFPM – implementing a sliding
cost-share based on states taking actions to become more flood resilient. A
blog from the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety on the details
of the incentive can be found here.

ASFPM was invited to
participate in strategic planning feedback sessions and our representatives
were largely impressed with the focus and implications for hazard mitigation.

Then, and drum roll please,
Congress passed and the president signed the most significant reform to FEMA’s
mitigation programs since the Disaster
Mitigation Act of 2000. The Disaster
Recovery Reform Act (DRRA) was signed by President Trump Oct. 5, 2018.

There are many provisions in
this new law that has a bearing on hazard mitigation (most good and a couple
that are bad). For this column, though, I want to focus on Section 1234, which
are the reforms to FEMA’s Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program.

The first big change is the
authorization of new technical and financial assistance category for the
establishment and carrying out enforcement activities. And to establish and to
implement the latest published editions of relevant consensus based codes, specifications
and standards that incorporate the latest hazard-resistant designs. It also established
minimum acceptable criteria for the design, construction and maintenance of
residential structures and facilities that may be eligible for assistance under
the Stafford Act.

The following information was
in a recent blog by the CEO of the
International Code Council, which provides some justification for the new code
establishment and enforcement activities:

Yet for all the progress that
has been made since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, one of the strongest storms to
ever hit the U.S., many jurisdictions are still applying outdated codes or do
not enforce a building code at all. In states where I-Codes adoption and
enforcement is performed at the local level, 16% of the population lives in
communities with codes that are at least nine years old and at least 2 million
people live in communities with codes that are at least 15 years old. Eight
states with statewide code requirements are on building codes that are nine or
more years old. These states cover nearly a quarter of the U.S. population.
Lack of resources is the primary reason communities do not update their codes
to more recent editions or enforce the codes they have in place. The Code
Council has heard this directly from communities, states and territories.

The second big change is that
FEMA will have the authority to withdraw pre-disaster mitigation financial assistance
made available to a state that remains unobligated by the end of the third
fiscal year after the fiscal year in which it was obligated and redistribute it
on a competitive basis to states that had received a major disaster declaration
in the previous seven years.

The third big change is that
FEMA adds two new criteria for PDM award assistance: 1) The extent to which the
state, local, tribal or territorial (SLTT) government has facilitated the
adoption and enforcement of the latest published editions of relevant consensus-based
codes, specifications and standards, including amendments made by SLTT
governments during the adoption process that incorporate the latest
hazard-resistant designs and establish criteria for the design, construction
and maintenance of residential structures and facilities that may be eligible
for assistance under this Act for the purpose of protecting the health, safety
and general welfare of the buildings’ users against disasters; and 2) the
extent to which the assistance will fund activities that increase the level of
resiliency.

Later in the section, Congress
defined the term “latest published editions.” It means with respect to relevant
consensus based codes and standards, the two most recently published editions. Therefore,
by the time FEMA implements the new program, assuming in CY 2019, the two most
recent editions of the International Codes would be 2015 and 2018. The
allowance for the two latest editions sunsets after five years and if no
changes were made in law, the latest published editions would be literally the
latest edition.

Finally, the fourth big change
is to change the funding formula for PDM to be an amount equal to 6% of the
estimated aggregate amounts of many of the FEMA disaster costs (IA, PA, etc.). So
what does this really mean? Well, if this law were in effect in 2017, then the
amount available for PDM in 2018 would have been over $1 billion! Can you
imagine that? A caution though. The authority is permissive, not mandatory. It
says the “president may…” What does this mean? Might the administration’s
budget not include a PDM program in future years as Congress focuses on debt
reduction? We will need to be keeping an eye on that moving forward.

Of course all of this means
that we all have a lot of work to do! FEMA has more than 50 new sections of
laws to address from the DRRA, in addition to guidance like that from the
Bipartisan Budget Act. States need to be aware of the new “systems” of
incentives and disincentives and take appropriate actions to best position the
state and communities to take advantage of the resources made available, and
communities especially need to consider applying for mitigation funds and
develop eligible hazard mitigation projects. We may be seeing an unprecedented
amount of funding available for hazard mitigation projects, but it starts with
a viable project!

With all of this, the devil
will be in the details! I can commit to all of you that ASFPM will continue to
be engaged with FEMA and our partners to ensure our voice will be heard in
policy development going forward. If 2018 is the year of mitigation, then
perhaps in 2019 and beyond, we will see real progress in community flood loss
reduction.